240 volts, that's pretty dangerous, right?

I was using a le meridien power converter, and it stopped working last night. I can't possibly be without my laptop for more than a few hours, and, rather than bother the nice people downstairs who will probably charge me for breaking their converter, I decided to buy another one (I actually need it for work). So I went to the co-op, since it's the only thing open during ramadan hours, and bought the only converter they have. It SAID on the package "works with US". It SAID "universal converter". I bet you know where this story is going.

I got back to my room, plugged in the converter, and sparks and smoke came out of the plug. I'm not sure if I got shocked or just burned from the sparks, but what ever happened, it hurt like hell and my finger has a blister on it. Huh, that's weird, I thought. I decided to try it in another plug, being careful this time to keep my fingers away from the plug by pushing the converter in with the eraser of my le meridien pencil. Same thing happened.

But, I had noticed at that point that all the power was out on that side of the room. Thinking, for who knows what reason, that another experiment was in order, since the power was out the second time I plugged in the converter, I checked a plug on the other side of the room, made sure it was working, and...this is embarrassing to admit...plugged the converter in again. Guess what happened.

So, now I was in my room with no electricity, a burnt finger, and a dead laptop battery. "F this!" I thought to myself, I'm going to the gym. Anyway, I couldn't call the front desk to report the problem because the power was out. As I was leaving my room I noticed a bunch of people gathering in the lobby on my floor, looking at me with disdain as I walked by in my running outfit (not showing knees, but showing shoulders, which are almost as bad as knees) carrying a bottle of water (big no no during fasting hours). What the hell are they doing up here? I wondered. Then I saw the signs and realized the hotel had set up a prayer room two doors down from my room. Honestly, had I known that, I would have waited until call to prayer started before leaving my room dressed in my workout clothes. Oh well.

I did my workout and then stopped by the front desk to tell them my power wasn't working. The bellhop, an annoying guy who has worked there for like a million years and who never calls a taxi for me in the morning, told me it was because I hadn't put my key in the power slot. I was like noooo, that's NOT the problem, and explained about the converter. Suddenly the woman at the front desk's eyes went huge, and she made a hurried phone call. I went to my room.

A few minutes later the power came on. A paki knocked on my door to make sure everything was okay, and I told him what happened, showed him the converter, and told him "you plug it in and see what happens". Of course, it was fine. He told me "Do not buy these local goods, they are very, very bad. And so cheap." Everyone around here is such a snob. There will never be a wal-mart in UAE. I thanked him and gave him a tip, and, as he was walking out the door he said "By the way, do not plug in cheap converters before call to prayer, because you make the electricity go out in the prayer room, and no one knows what is wrong, since you don't tell us what you did".

Oops :D

I apologized profusely, and, I swear I'm not making this up, he said "do not worry, it did not matter - it was only the women's prayer room".

Ech. Sorry sisters!

socks, smoking

Some people have been requesting pictures. So, here are some pictures.

These are my socks, which I just picked up from the laundry but someone else did it place, whatever you call it. Yes, the name of the place is Jeeves. Anyway, my socks were, I swear I'm not making this up, ironed, and then put in this lovely bag with a piece of tissue paper between them. It seems excessive.

Laundry was so much fun to drop off here. They had no idea how to classify my western clothes so they put things like "sports abaya" for my dress I wear over my bathing suit. They called my yoga pants "pantaloons". They ironed everything, even my sports bra, which they put in a plastic bag, with a hangar, but the bag was opaque so no one could see my sports bra.

This is the balcony outside my hotel room. Or should I say "balcony" since, after you walk down that little step, it's the roof of the hotel. I feed all of my new pets here. I have a cat who looks like an orange tabby left out in the sun too long, named Lancelot (he likes fish tikka but not fish with lime, and he really likes fish and chips but they are way too disgusting - I ordered them, took a bite, and fed the rest of them to Lance - now he whines all the time when I try to get him to eat more healthy). Then I have 5 birds. The birds showed up when one night I had a temper tantrum because the coconut cookies I bought were actually saltines with coconut sprinkles, and I threw the cookies out on my balcony after stomping on the package twice. Now I feed the birds grapes, rolls, pizza crust, and these milk biscuits that I bought, opened, and then forgot to eat for two days. Anything left out for more than a day here gets stale and then it hardens up. Gross. This is also where I smoke, since it's Ramadan, and you get arrested for smoking in public.

Hm, it just occurred to me...Lancelot showed up after the birds showed up...I hope he's not going to eat them.

This is my little hidey hole that the guy in the garage made for me (the pic is crap because I took it with my crackberry, but you get the idea). You can see the cardboard boxes stacked at the end there. I go here to smoke. I know, it's pretty gross. That's the garage guy's car duster. It's funny to see him walking around with it. It's almost as big as he is.

Oh well, Ramadan will be over in a few weeks, and everything can get back to normal...

bunker

Today I had a meeting with the new base colonel and I did something really bad. A dress seemed in order for the occasion, so I put on my new grey dress (Joe, that was one of my new dresses I showed you), with my sandals. The dress is a business dress, would pass for uber modest in most countries, and it's grey i.e. boring.

One thing I did NOT check with said dress was what would happen if I sat down in it. I got into Dr. T's car this am to head to the base and realized that, when sitting down, the hem of my dress, which is below my knees when standing, does not cover my knees when sitting.

Women get fined here for showing their knees in public. It's considered very bad form.

My stomach started hurting and I wanted to jump out of the car but Dr. T, who realized my problem, found it amusing.

We got to the colonel's office and it was weird. He had put two chairs sideways against his desk for Dr. T and the program manager to sit in. Then he directed myself and Ireland to this other area of his office (which was quite big) where there was a sofa, two modern leather chairs, and a coffee table. It looked like the set of a talk show. Dr. T said "Franki, why don't you sit right there?" pointing at a place on the sofa directly in the line of sight of the colonel. I sat down, and immediately the colonel started staring at my knees. I couldn't tell if he was horrified or intrigued. Anyway, the meeting went poorly, I thought, because the colonel didn't say much but Dr. T thought it went just fine.

Then I went into my office and found that it has been invaded by scottish guys. Very strange. They were all sitting around arguing and reading the paper, and I had to try really hard to not laugh because they all sound like that character Bubbles on Ab Fab. The noise of their arguments was only slightly less annoying than the fighter planes right outside my window (the runway is seriously like 200 yards from the bunker where we work) that seemed to be taking off every 10 minutes. I don't mind the C-130s because they just make noise. The fighter planes shake stuff around and make this horrible screechy metal sound.

There are female fighter pilots in UAE, by the way. How cool is that? There was one that used to work in my area but she got promoted and moved. Then she crashed her plane on accident last week but ejected in time. I'm sure it was the other driver's fault.

Tomorrow I tour an "apartment" in Le Meridien to move into when my reservation is up. At least I'll (supposedly) have a refrigerator and a microwave (though, I never use microwaves because I think they're gross, unless I'm making edamame). Hope I still have a balcony. I wonder if my pets will be able to find me when I move...

stranger in a strange land

Dinner last night was an interesting experience. Everyone at the table was from UK or Ireland, except for me and the husband of one of Ireland's friends, Evan. Evan asked me where I was from and I said "I'm from the US. I didn't vote for Bush." Evan said "Bush didn't run in the last election", missing my point.

Apparently he took offense to what I said, because he ignored me until the topic of running came up. He met his wife running with the harriers in Abu Dhabi. I asked if they had a web site or something so I could join and have a group to run with. He made some comment about "husband shopping" (he met his wife in the harriers) and then said he thought the harriers might be too competitive for me. And because everyone kept teasing him about his age I asked him how old he was. He said "that is the RUDEST question anyone has ever asked me". He wasn't joking, though I find his statement hard to believe because he's retired navy.

I tried to follow the other conversations going on around the table but was lost in idiomatic expressions and the inability to understand some of the accents. There was a conversation going on that seemed really interesting until I found out it was about a tv show about housewives. Every time someone in Ireland's group goes home they bring back the latest DVDs of TV shows that people like to watch here but that aren't on the TV. They asked if I had any DVDs. I thought about mentioning my 12 disk series on chaos or maybe my lecture series done by Neil deGrasse Tyson on the universe, but then decided to just say no.

Everyone was talking about this palace which is a 7 star hotel. Ireland and her brother and his wife went there Monday night for iftar (breaking of the ramadan fast, usually happens after sun down, and involves a tent with a ton of food - people sit around at tables in the tent eating and smoking sheesha). Ireland said she wanted to get married there. The whole dream wedding conversation went on for forever. I started thinking about what it would be like to be married to Neil. I could just see us sitting at a candle lit table, and him saying "Travel to the closest star would be an amazing journey. But if anything went wrong, you would die." Or "Black holes are fascinating things to study. But if you get to close to them, you will die." I think he's one of my favorite people and not just because he could get me into the Hayden planetarium for free (for more NdGT quotes: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/12855.Neil_deGrasse_Tyson).

I rejoined the conversation when Ireland's brother mentioned someone was attacked by a great white in Australia. I started explaining some shark stuff to him but Evan interrupted me and said "Stop talking about sharks. They're too depressing."

This morning Ireland was in a bit of a mood because she stayed out late last night. And we had the worst taxi driver ever. I got to the base and a parade of French guys kept coming by my desk while I was trying to work making loud comments. Seriously, what is wrong with the French? Though, the nationality with a bad rap here is the brits. They get arrested more than any other nationality by a factor of 3, mostly for drugs, public drunkenness, and sex related offenses. Last year a british couple was caught having sex on the beach and they were thrown out of the country. One wonders what they were thinking considering you can get arrested for holding hands in public here. No, I'm not making that up.

The day ended with me finding out I'm getting thrown to the wolves tomorrow at the base. Some meeting with some commanders for which I don't even have a presentation to present. Then I'm meeting with some guys from Pakistan next week. I'm not looking forward to traveling there. The flight to and from Islamabad leaves at 3 in the morning and you have to be there 3 hours in advance. Then you get driven everywhere. You are only allowed to go to your hotel or the customer site. And Dr. T warned me the power goes out a lot, and he was almost injured there his last trip when he was running on the treadmill and it came to an unexpected stop when the power shut off.

The good news is, there is a lot of work to do. That, of course, is also the bad news.

the tender trap

from a comment about an article that cited 3 warning signs that a guy is not a good guy to have a long term relationship with:

"I dont (sic) think that relationships can last unless you have both parties so wrapped up in one anothers (sic) lives that extricating themselves would be like ripping off a limb. Those relationships survive. The ones with not much invested as far as family friends and effort seem doomed to fail. I still feel that unless a man is open to falling totally in love with you right from the start your (sic) wasting your time trying to convince him. Hearts (sic) open or heart is closed. Cant (sic) make something out of nothing."

from the article "Is Sex Interesting?" by Wallace Shawn (Aug 2009, Harper's Magazine):

"Perhaps it is the power of sex that has taught us to love the meaningless and thereby turn it
into the meaningful. Amazingly, the love of what is arbitrary (which one could alternatively
describe as the love of reality) is something we human beings are capable of feeling, and perhaps
even what we call the love of the beautiful is simply a particular way of exercising this remarkable ability...Sex has always been known to be such a powerful force that fragile humanity can’t help but be terribly nervous in front of it, so powerful barriers have been devised to control it—taboos of all varieties, first of all, and then all the emotions subsumed under the concepts of jealousy and possessiveness, possessiveness being a sort of anticipatory form of jealousy. (A recent survey of married people in the United States found that when asked the question “What is very important for a successful marriage?” the quality mentioned most frequently—by 93 percent—was “faithfulness,” while “happy sexual relationship” came in
with only 70 percent. In other words, to 23 percent of the respondents, it seemed more important that they and their partner should not have sex with others than that they themselves should enjoy sex.)"

from "the once and future king", T.H. White:

"It is difficult to explain about Guenever, unless it is possible to love two people at the same time. Probably it is not possible to love two people in the same way, but there are different kinds of love...It had been a successful union, as "made" marriages generally are, and before Lancelot came on the scene the young girl had adored her famous husband...she had felt respect for him, with gratitude, kindness, love, and a sense of protection. She had felt more than this - you might say she had felt everything except the passion of romance."

"A woman can forget a lot of love in two years-or at any rate she can pack it away, and grow accustomed to it, and hardly remember it more than a businessman might remember an occasion when, by ill luck, he had failed to make an investment which would have made him a millionaire."

from an article about Neil deGrasse Tyson's book "the pluto files":

"...Disney's dog Pluto was sketched the same year the cosmic object was discovered. And Pluto was discovered by an American. So here you have a recipe for Americans falling in love with a planet that really is just a tiny ice ball...

So that was the famous Planet X. And eventually, Clyde Tombaugh in Arizona discovered a planet, which got named Pluto. Not by an American, though, because an American would never have named it after a highly advertised, highly marketed laxative of the same name that was popular then."

new kid on the block

In the taxi today, riding home with Ireland from the base in the worst traffic ever, I found out why all these weird people were stopping by my desk today. I guess word had gotten around the base that there was a new woman working there.

It's funny that when I first got here I thought I would find a bunch of people like me, and that I would have ample resources to climb and dive with. But it turns out most of the people I've met that are ex pats are out of shape married men who probably took their assignment to get away from the wife and kids.

The french guys are the most obnoxious. One guy came by my desk today and said "bon jour". I had no idea who he was so I said "good morning". He then counseled me in French to greet him in French. I told him to (insert explicative here) himself in Greek. For the rest of the day he would stop by my desk and say something in French. I answered him in Spanish, Arabic, or Greek depending on what I could remember. He finally got the message and decided to leave me alone after calling me a bad name in French (A speaks it and translated after the guy left).

Then, when A and I arrived at Ireland's building (she works on a different part of the base) to pick her up at the end of the day today, two other french guys were waiting with her. As she opened the door to the car (it's a 2 door BMW and I was sitting in the back) both guys came over to try to shake my hand or something. Then one, named Bruno (how could I make that up) actually tried to climb into the back seat of the car with me. Scary. Ireland had to push him out of the way and then A peeled out of the parking lot, though that was more to show off than because he was worried about me getting molested by a frog.

In the 15 minute drive across the 6 lanes of traffic we were laughing about most of the contractor guys we have to work with. Then we were talking about how even the muslim guys can be overly friendly, and during ramadan they use the excuse of trying to convert women to the muslim religion to hit on them. It's one of the tenets of their religion to convert people. Ireland said she would never want to convert to a religion where she would have to be one of four wives, and that she would rather have four husbands. I told her that sounded like way too much work.

On the drive back to Abu Dhabi, ramadan traffic was compounded by a bunch of construction. It's amazing how much building is going on in this city. They're building tunnels and bridges to islands that they had previously built. Then, on the islands, they're building buildings so people have a reason to go to the islands. It's all rather strange. In Abu Dhabi they're ripping down existing short (3 story) buildings and replacing them with tall skyscrapers with mirrored windows. I asked Ireland why they were ripping down what I thought was a cute little building and she said "because it isn't shiny enough".

Tonight I'm meeting Ireland, her brother, her brother's wife, her best friend and her spouse, and two americans she knows for dinner at a mexican restaurant. I finally discovered why there are no restaurants on the street. A place has to be located in a hotel to serve alcohol and most restaurants, other than lunch places and bakeries, could not survive not being able to sell alcohol. So they either open in a mall, or open in a hotel and serve alcohol.

Such is life on this side of the world...

flip flops vs. combat boots

Last week I got to meet some of the contractors I'll be working with when I did a two day training class for them. It was interesting to watch the expression on their faces when they walked in to find me as their instructor. Most of the guys took it in stride. One guy, though, was pretty militant about his views of women, and refused any help from me when he was trying to complete the exercises. Then the little bastard gave me a "good" rating on the evaluation, while rating everything else about the class "excellent".

The very important person to win over in the class liked me so the rating doesn't matter. The VIP is an ex fighter pilot, and we had some interesting discussions about the F-16 (my dad was the lead designer on the F-100 engine, so I immediately had street cred with the VIP). While at first I was worried to do my usual routine teaching class, after a few hours when they were responding to my jokes I decided to just pretend I was in the US.

I had been warned that people would fall asleep in my class and would want to leave early because of ramadan, but actually it was hard to get rid of them at the end of the day. And at one point everyone was laughing and yelling so loud the program manager came in to see what was going on (we were having a drawing race, and at the end I realized I had written all over the white board with a permanent marker - enter the tea boy to clean it with windex and a billion kleenex while the VIP gave a demonstration of "dry erase markers" and "permanent markers" in engli-arabic - I am probably glad I couldn't understand the arabic parts).

Today I went to the base to meet my customer. The base is in the middle of nowhere and is surrounded by road construction so it's pretty difficult to get to. I had to take a taxi to the supermarket across the street, where A was waiting for me. Then we drove out of the parking lot, made a u-turn, and entered the base. What's so crazy is that I could have walked across the street (it's only 6 lanes) but there are barriers up everywhere to keep people from doing that. So instead of a 5 minute walk we have to drive 10 minutes to get on base. And then, after all the drama of getting my pass so I could enter the gate, the guard didn't even ask for it. He just waved at me.

Most of the people I met today were very nice. My favorite is a captain, female. She looks like the emirati version of Angelina Jolie and her uniform is really cool. She wears a black head scarf, then has this very masculine looking square jacket with a bunch of military stuff stuck all over it, and then she has a long skirt that goes to the floor, and poking out from the hem are her black combat boots. She even has her own office.

Most of the day was spent with A trying to figure out our work schedule for the next few months. There's a lot to do. I found it funny that, at the end of the day, when I gave A a list of what I was going to work on for the rest of the week, he said "it's really weird to me that you are doing work". I sometimes wonder if I'm not really a consultant.

And, I've decided, unless something horrible happens, I'm going to Banff in November. Work is fun, but I really need to get my book published. I'll be breaking the news to Dr. T later this week.